Young City

What's the first thing that comes to your mind when talking about Helsinki?
This city is not like other European cities which have their own strong characters. Three churches in the city may be the landmarks of Helsinki, and we probably remember the photo of the statues of the railway station of Helsinki in our geography textbooks, and what else?
I'm still looking for the 'symbolic first image'.

Helsinki is a young city as Taipei.
Interestingly, both even have similar backgrounds, multi-cultural history, late development after the 1940s. (Helsinki is quite an important place for military purpose.) Helsinki and Taipei both attempt to make themselves convenient and comfortable cities. Somehow I wonder that this kind of goal may probably be a replacement for absence of city characteristics. In other words, the city does not have sufficient heritage from the past, so the option left for the city is to develop into a modern, green, and convenient city.

So Taipei City is not too lonesome among global cities. =P


By the way, Ravoniemi, where the Santa Claus village is located, is also quite young. It was almost destroyed in the World War II.